Exemplar of determination, compassion and hope

Oration honouring Lanier
PhillipsFriday May 30, 3 p.m.

We all have an idea of the popular image of a hero:
someone who risks life and limb in a crisis situation in order to
make a dramatic rescue. It might be a firefighter carrying a child
from a burning building, or a soldier putting country and comrades
before self. It might even be a character in colourful tights and
cape arriving just in the nick of time to avert certain disaster. A
hero is someone we admire and wish to emulate, at least in our
daydreams. If we were at the right place at the right time, if we
had been bestowed with those super powers, certainly we could
accomplish those same heroic feats.

There is another kind of hero, one who is rarely in the headlines
or on the evening news. Rather, these heroes persevere despite all
obstacles, day after day, year after year, at tasks that are far
from glamorous. In fact these heroes are as likely to garner abuse
as accolades for their efforts to improve the lot of those around
them. The gentleman we celebrate this afternoon is one of these
quiet heroes.

Lanier Phillips was born in Lithonia, Georgia, in 1923. The
great-grandson of slaves, he grew up in an environment in which
African Americans were only nominally free. The Ku Klux Klan
paraded through town weekly, firing guns in the air. Blacks were
regularly whipped and beaten as punishment for the smallest
infraction of Klan-imposed standards of behaviour. When the black
families of the town managed to build a school for their children
(the state did not fund education for African Americans), the Klan
promptly burned it down. Young Lanier saw life as a sharecropper as
his only option.

When the United States entered World War II, Phillips, like so many
other young men from impoverished families, saw enlistment in the
armed forces as a way to improve his prospects. In 1941, at the age
of 18, he joined the Navy. But he found life there was little
better than his civilian experience. African American sailors were
only allowed to serve as steward’s mates, essentially
servants to the officers. They were relegated to separate quarters
and facilities, literally “kept in their place.”

Instead of following a plow, Mr. Phillips was scrubbing pots and
polishing shoes as his ship, the Truxton, was steaming towards
Argentia. It was a typical Newfoundland winter morning that Ash
Wednesday, Feb. 18, 1942. A fierce blizzard was raging and
visibility was a few hundred meters at best. The Truxton, with no
radar, and running under radio silence to evade German U boats in
the area, ran aground in Chambers Cove, near St. Lawrence, on the
Burin Peninsula.

As the seas pounded the ship onto the rocks, desperate attempts
were made to launch the lifeboats. Some were smashed against the
ship, lines fouled on others and they had to be cut loose. One by
one, the remaining boats filled and set for shore. Still on deck
stood Lanier Phillips and four companions, three blacks and one
Filipino. They held back, not for fear of the sea, but for fear of
what lay beyond. They thought they might be in Iceland, where, they
had been told, Blacks were not allowed. They feared they would be
lynched if they stepped foot onshore. As the last lifeboat was
preparing to leave, Mr. Phillips urged them to get in and at least
die fighting. But they chose to wait in hopes of being rescued by
the Navy. Sadly, rescue did not come in time, and Mr. Phillips was
the only African American to survive the wreck of the Truxton.

Exhausted, drenched and chilled to the bone, Mr. Phillips collapsed
on shore, preparing to die. He was aware of men clambering down the
icy cliff on ropes, and hauling his shipmates back up, but they
were white people, helping white people. He drifted in and out of
consciousness, expecting to be left to die. And then the most
unbelievable thing happened. He awoke to find women in a makeshift
infirmary tending to him, the same as for the white men. He was
given dry clothing, ate at table with a white family, and finally
tucked into a bed where he lay awake all night. It wasn’t the
cold that kept him awake, nor was it the howling storm, nor even
the indelible images of the horrific event still haunting his
memory. It was fear. Fear that he would soon be discovered and
killed.

It became clear that the people of St. Lawrence saw him as an
equal. All his life, he had been treated as an inferior being.
There was no other reality. Now, like Kafka’s Metamorphosis
in reverse, he awoke to a new reality, one in which a black man
could hold his head up as an equal to any other. Mr. Phillips
resolved to live in this new reality.

But this is a true story, not a fairy tale, and the world did not
magically change to accommodate Mr. Phillips’ nascent
self-respect. He was accosted for presuming to sit in front of a
white man on a bus. An MP threw him to the ground and threatened to
shoot him for daring to approach a dining area where whites –
German and Italian prisoners of war – were eating. But with
quiet dignity, Lanier Phillips continued to behave as if all people
were created equal.

After 17 years of scrubbing and polishing, he knew the Navy was not
going to change unless someone made it change and that he could be
that someone. He informed the Bureau of Naval Personnel that he was
qualified for technical training. With the help of the first
African American U.S. Congressman, he secured an assignment to
Sonar School. But again, there was no fairy tale ending awaiting
him. Security clearance necessary for the school took an
inordinately long time to complete, as few governments kept civil
documents regarding their Black citizens. While he was waiting for
clearance, Mr. Phillips was cajoled, demeaned, threatened and
finally offered a substantial bribe in an attempt to get him give
up his place in sonar training.

Nonetheless he persevered. An essentially self-educated man
competing with college graduates, he knew he had to work much
harder than his classmates. But he realized that he was working not
just for himself. If he failed, it would be even harder for the
next individual who tried to break through discrimination
barriers.

In 1957, he became the first African American sonar technician in
the U.S. Navy.

Even with his new status, he was forced to continue insisting on
his rights as an equal even while demonstrating that non-whites
were every bit as capable as white sailors at complex and
responsible jobs.

After 20 years in the service, Mr. Phillips retired to civilian
life and continued a successful career in sonar technology, working
with Jacques Cousteau and the ALVIN deep-water submersible team. He
was active in the Civil Rights movement, joining Martin Luther
King’s historic march in Selma, Alabama, in 1965. He
continues to speak out against discrimination with audiences from
school children to military men. That today the U.S. Navy is a
model of equal opportunity is due in no small part to the efforts
and example of Lanier Phillips.

Vice Chancellor, in recognition of his meritorious military
service, his courageous efforts towards ending racial
discrimination, and his life as an exemplar of determination,
compassion and hope, I present to you, for the degree of doctor of
laws, honoris causa, a hero of our times, Lanier Phillips.